Event Details

Join writer and documentary filmmaker Ali Kazimi from York University and scholar Dr. Renisa Mawani from the University of British Columbia for an evening of dialogue and conversation on the living legacies of the Komagata Maru Episode. Engaging with issues of identity, racism, and history, the panel will investigate questions of Vancouver’s unique role in the Komagata Maru story, narratives of Empire and exclusion, and the potential parallels and echoes of that event that resonate today. Guest Curator Naveen Girn will moderate.

Date: Thursday, May 22, 2014Time: 6:30pm-8:00pmAdmission: By General Admission | MOV Members Free

The evening will also feature a screening of clips from Kazimi’s landmark documentary Continuous Journey. This event is part of a series of programs that coincide with the Museum of Vancouver’s exhibition, Unmoored: Vancouver’s Voyage of the Komagata Maru.

100 years ago, 376 British Indian passengers on board the Komagata Maru were denied entry into Canada. While moored in Burrard Inlet for two months, the passengers were racially discriminated by local and international powers intent on keeping Canada “a white man’s country.” In 2014, this event remains an important marker of our inherited history and a launching point from which to imagine our collective future.